A 13-year-old boy was shot 22 times overnight in the West Pullman Neighborhood while he rode his bicycle, according to police.

Robert Freeman, of the 11500 block of South Perry Avenue, died from the wounds.

Freeman was standing next to a car on South Perry at around 8:15 pm on Wednesday when a masked gunman jumped out of an overgrown vacant lot and opened fire into a crowd of people, his mother, Theresa Lumkin, said. Freeman was the only one hit...

A witness said the shooter stood over the boy after he fell and continued to shoot him in the chest. His family believes the shooting was a case of mistaken identity...

I am not suggesting that this story would have a different ending had they not passed the new laws following the recent SCOTUS ruling, the young man would still be dead. The point instead is, no matter how punitive the law, it will only be the law abiding citizens who are effected. The criminals will continue to leave their homes with their guns assembled.

Grim milestone as Chicago murders surpass 700Friday 2nd December, 2016: The number of murders in Chicago topped 700 for the first time in almost two decades, the US city's police department said Thursday (Dec 1).

With a month to go in 2016, the number of killings, almost all involving guns, is now more than 50 per cent higher than last year and stands at 701 - the most since 704 murders took place in 1998. There are more murders in this, the nation's third largest city, than in the two largest (Los Angeles and New York) combined. "The levels of violence we have seen this year in some of our communities is absolutely unacceptable," the city's police chief Eddie Johnson said in a statement. Law enforcement officials say much of the violence is related to the drug trade, illegal guns and gang battles. "Gangs and criminal elements appear to be more emboldened than in years past," police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told AFP earlier this month.

There have been 3,315 shooting incidents in the city so far, police said, 316 of them in November alone. The city is awash in illegally obtained guns, which is a major contributor to the problem, Guglielmi said. "Most cities are seeing a lot more guns being seized. Gun arrests are up," he said. City and state officials are attempting to change laws to crack down on gun offenders and make sure they serve longer sentences. The increase in bloodshed has come at a time of increased scrutiny for the Chicago Police Department, which is under a federal civil rights investigation for its treatment of African Americans.

Relations with majority-black communities are strained, especially after the release late last year of a video showing a white police officer fatally shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times, even after he had fallen to the ground. The video of the 2014 shooting - which was withheld from the public at first - shocked the city and the nation, and led to murder charges against officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot McDonald.

The police chief moved to fire seven other officers involved in allegedly covering up Van Dyke's actions. Their cases are still under investigation. Chicago police "will use every tool available to hold violent offenders accountable and will continue to work strategically to address crime and uphold its commitment to rebuild public trust", Johnson said. The city is planning to hire nearly 1,000 additional police officers over the next two years to bolster its force and help combat the rise in crime.

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